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Court opinion:
While searching a drug dealer's house in accordance with a search warrant, police officers find the suspect's cell phone lying face up in his bedroom. The phone lights up by itself, displaying a text message from "Shana" in plain view of the officers. The officers know from their prior investigation that a person named Shana has been working with the suspect in his drug dealing, so they take a photograph of the text message and use it as the basis of a new warrant for a search of the phone.
At trial, the defendant moves to suppress as the fruit of an illegal search all evidence obtained from the phone. He argues: The last notification received by the phone occurred six hours before the officers searched the house. Therefore, the phone cannot have "lit up by itself" while the officers were there. In reality, the officers must have activated the phone's screen themselves in an illegal warrantless search and then lied on the application for the second warrant. The trial judge agrees with the defendant's reasoning and suppresses the evidence obtained from the phone. The appeals panel affirms.
Note:
There's a bunch of other evidence on which the defendant definitely still will be convicted of drug dealing.
The author of the appeals panel's opinion autistically changed nearly every quoted instance of "cell phone" to "cell[ular tele]phone".
Court opinion:
A man is in jail, with pending criminal charges for abusing his romantic partner. In January 2024, the woman additionally requests a protection-from-abuse order, which is granted.
In May 2024, the man is charged with criminal contempt for having contacted or attempted to contact the woman from jail 343 times in 24 days. In June, he is charged with another fifty instances of the same wrongdoing, circumventing the jail's efforts to prevent him from doing so. In August, he is charged with eight more instances.
The trial judge finds the man guilty of all 401 counts of criminal contempt. Each count carries a jail term of two days (with the possibility of parole after one day) and a fine of one dollar, for a total of 802 days and 401 dollars. The appeals panel affirms.
Note to self: if you are using your phone to deal drugs, set up privacy settings so that messages do not show up when the phone is locked. Which actually is the setting on all my phones anyway even though I don't deal drugs.
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